Artificial streaming —fake plays from bots or click farms— remains a serious issue in the music industry. The latest Spotify for Artistes Masterclass launched today tackles this head-on. The video clarifies the complexities of artificial streaming, its negative impact on artistes (inflated stats, misled fans, lost royalties), and how creators can protect themselves. Many artistes are unknowingly targeted by services promising "guaranteed streams" or playlist placements, which are often red flags leading to penalties and hindering genuine fan connections.

Spotify actively combats artificial streaming using advanced detection, manual reviews, and collaborations like the Music Fights Fraud Alliance. Educating artistes and the industry is key. Understanding artificial streaming helps artistes get fairly compensated and ensures their music reaches real listeners.

In the video, you’ll hear from Andreea Gleeson (CEO, Tunecore), David Martin (CEO at Featured Artistes Coalition), and Bryan Johnson (Head of Artiste & Industry Partnerships, International at Spotify). Below are a few quotes from each speaker:

Andreea Gleeson, CEO, Tunecore:

• “It's very, very important that we protect the ecosystem because we want as much of the royalty pool to go to artistes with legitimate listeners and make sure that they're the ones that are benefiting from all their hard work.”
• “What we saw a couple years ago is that we would catch somebody and then they'd appear again on the platform because they came through another distributor. So several of us that are tackling the same problem actually got together a couple years ago. We formulated an alliance and it's called Music Fights Fraud Alliance. So the Music Fights Fraud Alliance is a coalition of companies across stream platforms, distributors, labels that have come together to be able to put our resources and brains against “how do we fight fraud?” That goes from how do we detect it, how do we mitigate it, how do we enforce it? We want to eradicate fraud. That is our mission and we're gonna get as close to it as possible. Ultimately, our goal is to get more money in the pockets of real artistes with real fans. This is something we take seriously at every level all around the world and our efforts are working.”
• “Many of us that are distributors are getting reports from the DSPs on artificials streaming. And we’ll notify our artistes when we’re seeing it. So for an artiste that’s starting out, maybe they hired a marketing firm that they thought was going to actually do PR and comms and marketing strategy for them. But instead hired a bot farm and did artificial streaming. For the bigger artistes, it even happens to them, and it could be a fan who’s bought ads, or a member of the team who was trying to be creative. It happens.”

David Martin, CEO at Featured Artistes Coalition:

• “We're seeing artistes get contacted on social media frequently. Often they're getting DMs and then if they actually were to research those companies, they don't exist or they don't have a footprint. ‘It is: we will guarantee you this, we will guarantee you these fans, we will guarantee you this reach. We will guarantee you these streams’. That's always a red flag. If anybody is guaranteeing that they can get you on playlists or they can boost your fans, I would say avoid that. I would say do your research. If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably too good to be true.”

Bryan Johnson, Head of Artiste & Industry Partnerships, International at Spotify:

• “We know how frustrating it can be if you're caught up in any of this. That’s why we’re investing heavily in tech and resources to detect artificial streams, and enforcing policies as quickly as possible to deter bad actors from doing it in the first place. This is something we take seriously at every level, all around the world. And our efforts are working.”
• "To be crystal clear: You can’t buy your way onto a playlist. Any service charging you money to get on a Spotify playlist – including non-editorial ones – is a scam. They may claim to help book you Spotify ads to promote your music, but in reality the company took your money and utilized bots in an attempt to inflate your stream count. And, they may add your music to botted playlists."
• "Our policy is that when we detect any artificial streams, those streams do not earn royalties. They are fully removed from royalty calculations and do not dilute the royalty pool in any way. Those streams do not count toward public stream numbers, monthly listener count, or charts."
• "Labels and distributors will be charged per track when significant artificial streaming is detected on their content. This charge may then be passed on to the artistes whose tracks are detected as artificially streamed."